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Home | Settlement D | Duchy of Normandy
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Originally composed of a northern portion of the province of Neustria centered around Rouen on the Seine, it was later expanded by conquest southward to include the areas of Évreux and Alençon and westward into Breton territory, eventually roughly corresponding to the two Regions of Haute-Normandie and Basse-Normandie of the modern French Republic, plus the Channel Islands. All former mainland territory is now part of France, and the Duchy now consists solely of the Channel Island Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey, which are Crown Dependencies of the British Monarchy. The British sovereign is the current Duke of Normandy. See Normandy for this region in modern France and more of the geography and culture of the region. When the Norse-speaking settlers spread out over the lands of the Duchy, they adopted the Gallo-Romance speech of the existing populations - much as Norman rulers later adopted in England the speech of the administered people. In Normandy, the new Norman language formed by the interaction of peoples inherited vocabulary from Norse. In England the Norman language developed into the Anglo-Norman language. The literature of the Duchy and England during the period of the Anglo-Norman realm is known as Anglo-Norman literature. |
